-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- If Super Bowl Sunday is a day you look forward to with great anticipation each year , if it is a day that you equate with excitement and good times , there 's something you should know :

You may have a politician to thank for your happy feelings .

On the other hand , if Super Bowl Sunday is a day you dread each year , if you are dismayed by the notion that the day has turned into a lockstep secular holiday during which most of the nation seems hypnotized for hours on end , there 's something you should know :

You may have a politician to blame for your grumpy feelings .

In both cases , it 's the same politician :

President Theodore Roosevelt .

A persuasive argument can be made that , were it not for what Roosevelt did during a meeting in the White House toward the end of 1905 , football as we know it today would not be a part of American life . There never would have been a National Football League -- at least not the wildly popular NFL that has become such a sports , business and cultural institution -- and Americans would almost certainly be spending Super Bowl Sunday in a completely different way .

Here 's the short version of what happened :

Early in the 20th century , football , as played on college gridirons , was something close to a street fight . The rules were lax at best , and were routinely ignored . During the 1905 season alone , 18 college and amateur players died . And despite the growing violence -LRB- or , who knows , maybe because of the growing violence -RRB- , fans were flocking to the games -- the sport was gaining followers .

So , if the fans liked what they were seeing , what was the problem ?

The problem was that a serious movement was afoot to ban the sport -- to get rid of football .

Remember , the NFL did not exist -- the college game was the top level of the sport . Harvard 's president , Charles W. Eliot , was leading the charge to abolish football , and it began to look as if he and his allies had a chance of doing just that . To give you an idea of just how seriously the get-rid-of-football movement was being taken , the New York Times ran an editorial expressing concern over `` Two Curable Evils '' in American life : lynchings and football .

Enter Theodore Roosevelt .

There is ample historical documentation of what Roosevelt did , but as my guide through the thicket that football entered and from which it eventually emerged and thrived , I sought the assistance of author John J. Miller , whose meticulously researched book , `` The Big Scrum : How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football , '' is the gold standard .

Roosevelt , Miller told me , loved football , but had never played the game -- by the time he was president , Roosevelt cut a brawny , outdoorsmanlike , Hemingwayesque figure -LRB- well , Hemingway had n't been heard of in those years , but you get the picture -RRB- , yet as a boy he was small , sickly and wore eyeglasses . When he was serving in the White House and football was under fire , he wanted the game to survive , `` but he realized that the critics had a point . ... He loved the sport and thought it was great , but he recognized there was a threat to it . ... He was concerned that we would lose the game . ''

Thus , Roosevelt convened a meeting in the White House of the most influential men in college football . Present were Walter Camp , the leading figure in the formative years of the game , as well as representatives from Harvard , Princeton and Yale . According to Miller , Roosevelt told them : `` Football is on trial . Because I believe in the game , I want to do all I can to save it . '' He impressed on them that genuine , substantive changes must be instituted .

Miller said that Roosevelt did not use the `` big stick '' -- he did not threaten and he did not pound the table . `` I see nothing but levelheadedness on Roosevelt 's part , '' Miller said . `` He was a great politician . He knew how to negotiate and make a point . '' -LRB- Roosevelt , after all , would win the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a treaty between Russia and Japan , who went to war in 1904 -RRB- .

With the football men , Miller told me , Roosevelt certainly had `` sufficient skills to bring people to the table and bring concessions and agreement . ''

He got it . There was some resistance during and after the meeting , but eventually football 's leaders would agree to get rid of many of the elements that had turned the sport into all-but-unregulated brutality . Rugby-style mass formations , and gang tackling , were outlawed ; the distance needed for a first down was changed from five yards to ten , which made it essential to come up with plays that did n't necessarily go straight through the center of the line ; a neutral zone was instituted at the line of scrimmage ; and -- most important -- a new kind of play was put into the rulebook :

The forward pass .

`` It revolutionized the game , '' Miller said . `` It spread out the action . It opened up the field . '' Football became more thrilling to watch ; the college game boomed , the NFL was born .

Speaking of which : With today 's new concerns about football violence and long-term injuries , could a president in the 21st century convene a meeting to try to accomplish what Roosevelt did ?

John Miller doubts it .

`` One reason a president of the United States might not get involved is fear of public failure , '' he said . There was no Internet when Roosevelt brought the football men to the White House ; there was no television ; there were no radios in American homes . He had been able to pull the whole thing off relatively quietly . If football leaders were called to the White House today , the whole country would know it in advance , and for any president , `` the risk of getting involved at that level is the risk of not succeeding . ''

So , I asked , on Super Bowl Sunday , what is the proper way to regard Teddy Roosevelt ?

It 's simple , Miller said : `` He was football 's indispensable fan . ''

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene .

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Bob Greene says we may have Theodore Roosevelt to thank for football as we know it

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He says lax rules and high injury in the early 1900 's prompted a call to ban the sport

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He says Roosevelt intervened to persuade teams to formalize rules , hence cutting injury

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Greene : Expert writer on the subject says not likely a president today could pull this off